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Truck driver in fatal crash with Mountie says cruiser signalled a turn but went straight

Const. Adrian Oliver was the son of the RCMP's officer in charge of border integrity

Const. Adrian Oliver, 28, died in a crash with a semi truck early Tuesday morning. He was the fifth Surrey Mountie to die while on duty since the RCMP took over policing in Surrey in 1951.

Photograph by: JACOB ZINN
, Surrey NOW

METRO VANCOUVER - The truck driver involved in the crash that killed a Surrey RCMP officer was recovering at home Wednesday, bruised and badly shaken.

Harjeet Loty said around 5 a.m. Tuesday, he was returning to his company’s yard following a late-night drive from Annacis Island, a mostly industrial site in the South Fraser River.

He said he was heading east on 64 Avenue in Surrey and at the intersection, prepared to make a left-hand turn onto 148 Street. His trucking company, Heaven Transport Ltd., leases parking space at 66 Avenue and 148 Street, two blocks away.

Loty said he saw an oncoming car signalling to make a right-hand turn at the same green light, but he said the car did not turn and the two vehicles collided.

The driver of the unmarked cruiser was Adrian Oliver, a 28-year-old Surrey RCMP constable, who was returning to the detachment office after his patrol shift. Oliver died in the crash, which left the car’s front end a heap of burnt and twisted metal.

Loty got bruises on his chest and needed eight stitches in an arm. He was treated and released from hospital Tuesday night.

“Right now, I’m in pain and I’m in shock,” Loty said in a phone interview from his Surrey home.

“I saw him. He gave the signal to turn right, he had to turn right,” he said.

“We both had a green light. I enter in the intersection (waiting to turn) and he’s supposed to turn. He didn’t turn, he came straight on me,” Loty said. “That’s the confusion. He just hit me.”

Loty said there was lots of time for both vehicles to make their respective turns, and that the RCMP cruiser’s flashing lights and siren were not activated. Loty said he’s used to night driving and, like most shift workers, got lots of sleep during the day.

After the collision, he said he tried to get Oliver from the cruiser, and attempted to put out the flames coming from the car’s front end. But he had trouble operating his fire extinguisher due to his own injuries. He waited for the ambulance and police to arrive, and has provided RCMP a statement.

He’s only been driving for Heaven Transport since the summer, but has been a truck driver for 12 years, he said.

Ken Bola, the company’s dispatcher who was working Tuesday morning, said Loty phoned him at work from the police station around 8:15 a.m. He said Loty told him his truck had been in low gear, moving forward, when the RCMP car “all of a sudden sped up.”

“He thought that car was going to turn. As soon as (it) turned, (he) would just go behind him. He was just waiting. He was moving a little bit, five or ten kilometres per hour speed,” Bola said. “As soon as he came almost half into the left lane (waiting to turn), the car just sped up and the car was coming straight to him. There was just big bang, that’s all.”

The RCMP investigation is still in its early stages, said Cpl. Bert Paquet.

“We will not discuss the specifics of this case until a thorough investigation has been completed.”